Sumac and Za’atar are two of my favorite spices/seasonings to work with – I love the flavors. When I saw this recipe from Spendid Table, based on a Palestinian called m’sakhan, I put it on my list to make. Somehow it has taken a long time before I got around to it, but I’m glad we finally did. We both liked it a lot, and it’s very easy – marinade, roast, done. We had it with roasted butternut squash and broccoli for a nice fall meal.
So this was pretty awesome. I’ve had this Serious Eats recipe on our “to make” list for months, but have never gotten around to it for some reason. What a shame, because it was awesome, and will also make fantastic leftovers! In fact, I’m ready to make it again, just to freeze and have more for later. Anyway, I have never worked with ground chicken before, and was doubtful when I put the mix in the loaf pans, because soupy slop is kind. But it all turned out. I did ditch the jalepenos and cayenne (other than a dusting) because neither of us loves heat. I subbed generous red pepper flakes instead. I used 2lb of chicken for this and estimated liquids/spices to make up for it. We had this with chili-lime green beans…loved it! To top it off, a VERY generous portion is very little in the calorie department…can’t beat that!
Lamb chops are not something we have all that often, though we both love them. This was a great, quick dinner from Serious Eats – perfect for a weeknight (we were in a hurry to get to our Halloween party!), came out really well with very little effort. We had them with lemon feta green beans and mashed cauliflower.
I’m not a huge fan of pot roast in the slow cooker – I’d really rather just do a roast in the oven. But this has been an out-of-control work month, and the slow cooker is about the only cooking that happened. This was a really great recipe, actually, the red wine made a difference. We had this with spinach and the veggies from the slow cooker.
Another in the (delicious) quest for more excellent pork chop brines – I think this is now up there with my other favorite’s, Jon’s Cider chops and beer brined chops. Awesome on the grill! I adapted this from Rasa Malaysia.
I admit that I was as skeptical of this as I was about crock pot Shawarma…pho at home is difficult at best, and pho in a crock pot? That said, this was AWESOME. Seriously. Chicken pho is always easier to pull off, and this was pretty great. Leftovers were equally awesome. This originally came from Eating Well, and I didn’t make too many changes (though we used Shirataki noodles in place of rice noodles).
We have been trying semi-successfully to make sure we have at least one meatless dinner a week. I say “semi” because we keep aiming for Monday, and something happens, we get busy, and we end up grabbing something fast (and not veggie). This worked out well, though – our first go at stuffed peppers in the crock pot, and we used Morning Star crumbles in place of ground beef or turkey. We loved this! I have always worried that stuffed peppers in the crock pot would be kind of mushy, but no problems. We also used quinoa in place of rice and really liked that as well. A do over for sure.
This was a super easy and REALLY tasty slow cooker meal – get a quick veggie side ready and you’ve got a fast weeknight dinner. It was perfect for a horse show night when I’m home late – either one of us could have dinner whenever we roll in. I thought this was interesting because a) it was a way to use the huge amount of pesto we have from our garden, and b) I like the flavors of ranch, but I don’t like salad dressing. It was great! We’d make it again for a quick dinner anytime, and this would probably be really nice with a whole chicken cut up – just skin it and you’d get light and dark meat in a very flavorful dish. You could really do any chicken with this, and I bet a pork loin would do well with the same seasoning.
I received a Food Network Magazine subscription as a gift, and it does have some very fun (if caloric) ideas. I saw this flank steak on skewers idea and thought we could definitely do something with it, with some tweaking (and it happened we had a flank steak around 😉 ). We really like this! We used a marinade from Serious Eats, and a Chimichurri from Chow, and there you have it. Flank steak was pretty tender and flavorful and the Chimichurri was great and used up herbs from our garden. We served this with our summer squash as a side – great, fast dinner that I was able to prepare ahead of time and Shawn could grill while I finished with the horses (aka got home late). A win-win!
So I’m not going to lie…I was skeptical about this one. Shawarma in the slow cooker? But we love the dish, and with a crazy horse show schedule, wildness at work, life, and the universe, the slow cooker is our friend right now. So we gave it a try and were pleasantly surprised! This is not traditional shawarma, but it is a close approximation in the flavor category. We gobbled it up for sure. We made this with toum and Moroccan spiced steamed carrots (our own from the garden!) as a side – pretty delish dinner! I’d do this one again with very little tweaking beyond double the amount of chicken at the start for more leftovers, and decrease the liquid a hair. I might also try bone-in chicken next time for a bit more flavor.
Om nom nom! 